Supply Chain Network From SAP Drives Value Through Greater Visibility And Collaboration; New Event Management and Supply Chain Exchange Solutions Enhance mySAP Supply Chain Management

Business Wire, April 23, 2001

Business Editors/Technology Writers

LISBON, Portugal--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Today at its international e-business conference, SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) announced that mySAP(TM) Supply Chain Management (mySAP SCM) enables a company to bring its customers, suppliers and partners more closely together.

This is achieved through the elimination of business boundaries accomplished by several recent mySAP SCM advances, including adaptive event management, private exchanges (see separate release) and business portals. Used in combination with supply chain components of the mySAP.com(R) e-business platform, companies can create a more loyal network of customers, suppliers and partners. With mySAP SCM, companies can remove the process and interface walls that separate people and companies.

Event Management Extends the Network Across Multiple Tiers of Partners

New Supply Chain Event Management functionality with mySAP SCM enables an adaptive supply chain by monitoring and responding to events and processes across the network. With event management, a supply network can be more responsive to shifts along the chain of companies by screening out nonproblematic events and triggering automated responses to routine problems, so employees can focus on value-added activities. Through mobile business integration, the right people can be reached regardless of their location so they can quickly and efficiently resolve each situation. In addition, mobile business integration enables the instantaneous capture of information that can be distributed and made visible to the entire supply chain network. This results in improved responsiveness, greater cooperation among partners, improved customer satisfaction and ultimately better profitability.

New Supply Chain Private Exchange

In addition, mySAP SCM networking capability is now enhanced by the new private exchange solution from SAPMarkets, Inc. A private exchange delivers business-to-business processes that transform supply chain participants into members of a true collaborative commerce community regardless of their IT operating environment. Through a private exchange, companies can extend their processes over the Web to include suppliers and partners to collaborate, share plans, and coordinate in real time across the entire supply chain. A networked supply chain unleashes value that is often locked within boundaries by making the business processes visible.

The private exchange solution that is part of mySAP SCM will initially feature collaborative demand and supply management that support processes for developing a single, instantaneously shared forecast of customer demand visible across multiple tiers of suppliers. This eliminates propagation delays and increases customer service and asset utilization by allowing partners to more effectively coordinate production and logistics. Suppliers and vendors can leverage shared forecasts and real-time demand signals to automatically replenish stock.

Additional private exchange capabilities include collaborative fulfillment that allows customers to configure products and check availability online. Availability verification takes into account product allocation and capacity at multiple tiers of the supply chain, and collaborative transportation management coordinates logistics processes with third-party logistics providers.

Also, collaborative procurement provides global visibility into direct material spending by allowing for the demand for raw materials and components to be aggregated, letting partners leverage buying clout and reduce ad hoc buying. The solution enables indirect and direct material procurement and supports different types of RFP and RFQ formats, as well as matching, negotiation, auctions, dynamic sourcing, order management, logistics and exchange-based buying.

"Visibility and collaboration are key to advances in supply chain management," said Claus Heinrich, member of the executive board, SAP AG. "mySAP SCM can provide these key features across customers and multiple tiers of suppliers to encompass the complete value chain. With these important new capabilities within mySAP SCM, companies will be better able to balance supply with demand, and achieve increased visibility and stronger collaboration."

Portals View and Monitor the Networked Supply Chain

In today's heterogeneous business environment, a supply chain network must guarantee that all involved parties have an easy-to-use single access point to their relevant content regardless of the time, location and Internet device used. With mySAP SCM, supply chain knowledge can now be extended and shared across the network with their business partners.

The mySAP SCM solution will be accessible through portals available today via the mySAP(TM) Workplace(TM) -- the enterprise portal solution of the mySAP.com e-business platform, and via portal solutions to be developed by SAP Portals, Inc., the recently-announced new SAP subsidiary dedicated to the development of enterprise portal solutions.